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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: CYBERKEN who wrote (312889)10/31/2002 6:48:19 PM
From: Gordon A. Langston  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 769670
 
Guess Granny was a Dem "plant" and didn't need the wheelchair. She seems ...well..more vigorous than Mondale.

democrats.org



To: CYBERKEN who wrote (312889)10/31/2002 7:05:54 PM
From: Mr. Palau  Read Replies (6) | Respond to of 769670
 
Minn. Court Orders New Ballots
32 minutes ago

By BRIAN BAKST, Associated Press Writer

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - In a partial victory for the Democrats, Minnesota's
Supreme Court ordered local election officials Thursday to send out new
absentee ballots to people who ask to change their Senate vote in the wake of
Sen. Paul Wellstone's death.

The ruling fell well short of what the Democrats
wanted: throwing out all absentee votes already cast
and mailing new ballots to everyone, whether they
asked for a new one or not.

The decision came after former Vice President Walter
Mondale kicked off a lightning five-day campaign
against Republican Norm Coleman as the Democrats'
last-minute stand-in for Wellstone, who was killed in
a plane crash last week while locked in a tight
re-election race vital to control of the Senate.

Mondale said he planned to travel the state and
would engage Coleman in a single debate before
Tuesday's election.

"I hope people will recognize what I face here," the
74-year-old former vice president said a day after
party officials chose him as their new candidate. "I
want to reintroduce myself and I want to listen."

Coleman, 53, hopped aboard a bus to visit five cities and continued to note the
age difference between the candidates. At a Moorhead restaurant, Coleman
talked of his own vitality and then told supporters it would be a close race.

"Give me everything you've got," Coleman said.

Mondale's campaign released a letter from his doctor declaring him in
"excellent shape" even though he lost partial vision in his right eye as a result of
a blood clot in February. Mondale said he still can read and drive.

The abbreviated campaign began in earnest six days after Wellstone, his wife,
daughter and five others were killed. A poll suggests Mondale has a slight lead
over Coleman, a former St. Paul mayor.

Under a plan that state officials earlier this week said was dictated by state law,
absentee votes that had been cast for Wellstone before his death would not be
counted, and voters who wanted to cast a new ballot would have to go to their
local election office and request one.

But the Democrats complained that would be too inconvenient for many voters
and would disenfranchise those who marked their ballots for Wellstone.

The Republicans opposed a blanket re-mailing but told the high court they had
no objection to sending new ballots to anyone who requested them, which was
the Democrats' fallback position.

The high court issued its ruling just hours after hearing arguments, and the
seven justices did not detail their reasoning.

Even with the court's quick ruling, however, there is no guarantee voters will get
a new ballot in time to return it before the polls close on Tuesday.

Democratic Party lawyer Alan Weinblatt had no immediate comment on the
ruling. Weinblatt had asked the court to make replacement absentee ballots
available by any means — Web site, fax, even e-mail. But the court order only
authorized election officials to use traditional mail.

Almost 4.5 percent of voters cast absentee ballots in Minnesota in 1998, the
last non-presidential election year, and the number is expected to grow this
year.

Even apart from the legal dispute, state and county officials warned that the
results of Tuesday's election will be delayed for hours.

They said there is not enough time to test optical scanners to make sure they
can properly read a supplemental ballot for the Mondale-Coleman race,
meaning they must be hand-counted.

___
story.news.yahoo.com